


life's not about what you've got

by glundergun (cleardishwashers)



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Episode: s13e10 Mac Finds His Pride, Gen, Light Angst, M/M, luther mcdonald can suck my huge sexy meat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-14 13:01:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21016193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cleardishwashers/pseuds/glundergun
Summary: Dee comes home and she is so extraordinarilypissed (“we can’t have you on the float, you’re a lesbian,”Charlie had said,“and gay men are much more noteworthier than lesbians, so…”)that she doesn’t notice Mac on her couch until she’s slammed her purse down on the table.





	life's not about what you've got

**Author's Note:**

> this was written because dee and mac are the epitome of mlm/wlw solidarity and that's that on that

Dee comes home and she is so extraordinarily _pissed_ _(“we can’t have you on the float, you’re a lesbian,”_ Charlie had said, _“and gay men are much more noteworthier than lesbians, so…”)_ that she doesn’t notice Mac on her couch until she’s slammed her purse down on the table. She jumps about a foot into the air. “Jesus, Mac, what the shit are you doing h—”

The words die in her throat as she catches sight of his eyes— bloodshot, in the truest sense of the word, and red-rimmed, and she  _ knows _ he’s smoked all her weed and drunk all her cough syrup and snorted what little coke she had left, and under her anger is a faint current of worry.

She wonders when she made room in her heart for Mac. Dennis, of course, has always been there— neither one of them have managed to completely hack away at the ties that birth provided them, despite all their attempts at it— and same with Frank, to a lesser extent. Charlie managed to carve out his own tiny space back in high school, with all his talk of rats and spiders distracting her from the talk of the Aluminum Monster. But Mac— she’s always kind of hated him, and she can’t quite put her finger on  _ why. _ It’s either because they’re more similar than she and Charlie (and sometimes even more than she and Dennis) or because he’s a misogynistic douche. Maybe both. Either way, he was always the one she could stand the least, and vice versa. Hell, in high school, when Mac’s dad had gotten arrested, she’d come home to find him on their couch, clutching a baggie of heroin, and all she’d said was  _ “Dennis will be home soon.” _

She doesn’t say that now. First of all, there’s no way Dennis could show up at her apartment— he’s probably still having his Gay Panic, brought on by smiling gay men hitting on him and lots of alcohol and that stupid video that Frank sent of Mac dancing or something, and even if he  _ wasn’t _ knee-deep in empty Jack Daniels bottles, she’d changed the locks on her apartment as soon as they’d moved out and only given the new key to Mac. Secondly, she’s grown the tiniest bit fond of Mac since the twenty-five years between now and high school, just enough to make her care. “Why are you here?” she asks, consciously doing her best to soften her voice.

Mac sniffs. God, he can be pathetic when he wants to. “Came out to my dad,” he says, so flat and quiet that Dee isn’t sure that he said it at all. “He— Christ, Dee, he just—” an exhale racks his body, and his voice cracks when he says, “He just walked out.”

“I’m sorry,” Dee says.

Mac pulls a blunt from his pocket, perfectly rolled, because even with all his other flaws, he’s always been damn good with weed. He lights it and passes it to Dee and the smoke feels good rushing between her teeth, good enough to let her sit down next to him. Of course, he steals the blunt as soon as she does, but he passes it back as soon as he hits it. “Dee—”

“Shut  _ up,” _ Dee tells him, “you’re just gonna start bawling.”

“You don’t—” he sniffs, loud and wet, and she wonders where the hell she picked him up, like gum stuck to her shoe— a truck stop, maybe, or the 7-11 by St. Joe’s, or any one of the seedy joints they frequented when Dennis was partying with his frat brothers and Charlie was passed out with a glue can in hand, when they could both still pretend that they were anything other than queer and the places they went to were more than happy to cater to that subset of the population.

“I do,” Dee says. She inhales again, the scorch of the vapors barely tickling her throat. “And then you’re gonna be a bitch to me the next time we’re all together, because men have no idea how to express emotion.” Mac glares at her, and she glares back. “You know I’m right.”

“I literally did a performance piece not two hours ago, so shut the fuck up,” Mac says.

The flat tone to his voice is softening into something raw and messy, and normally this is the point where Dee would tell him to shut up, keep smoking, try this strain, but she’s goddamn  _ tired. _ “You did a performance piece?” she asks instead, taking a hit and passing it back.

“Yeah. At the prison, and then—”

“Your dad walked away,” Dee says, and she means for it to be sarcastic and witty and barbed like razor wire but it comes out more like ivy, soft and twining and slow.

“Goddamn, Dee, let me finish my sentences, will you?” Mac glares again, stuffing as much anger into the expression as a man on the verge of tears can. If anyone else were here, he’d call her a bitch or a bird or something worse, but he just pulls his feet up onto the couch like he’s goddamn twelve, and Dee can’t find the strength to tell him to take his goddamn shoes off.

“Why are you  _ here? _ Why not your own house?” She knows the answer to that, knows it as soon as the words leave her mouth, but she still feels the equal amount of pity and perverse pleasure that she would’ve in any other situation at the sight of Mac’s face twisting, like she’s slapped him.

“He’s not taking any of his meds, and he’s not— look, North Dakota fucked him up, and I can’t— not right now, okay?” Mac says, desperate for absolution, the plea in his voice bleeding into his eyes.  _ If he wants forgiveness, he should’ve gone to a church, _ Dee thinks, trying to muster her usual bitterness, but she  _ understands. _ North Dakota fucked up a lot, including the delicate equilibrium of Mac-and-Dennis, and the Mac-and-Dennis system had worked better than the D.E.N.N.I.S. system ever could— Mac would pick up and glue together the jagged pieces of a post-crash Dennis and Dennis would shape and mold Mac’s boundless energy so he didn’t burn out, and then the two of them would go back to terrorizing the streets of Philly (and by extension, Dee). She’d thought that if she could just break down the Mac-and-Dennis system, crush Dennis under her heel and let Mac burn down to embers, life would be fan-fucking-tastic, but it’s all wrong, because now Dennis is the one blazing up and scorching them all to death and Mac is the one made of shattered glass, his knife-sharp edges cutting into himself and anyone who dares touch him, and they each don’t know how to fix the other and Dee can’t fix them either.

She pulls him down, so that his head is in her lap and her hands are threaded through his hair, and he curls up even more, a wounded animal, stranded and bleeding out. His chest heaves, but he remains completely silent. “Yeah, I know,” Dee whispers. “I get it.”

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! drop me a line at @glundergun on tumblr :))


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